This evening, it’s precision work on Tauentzienstrasse. Spotlights bathe the construction site in bright light as the last section of the sculpture Berlin is slowly lowered by a crane. A crowd of passersby watches the rebuilding of one of the capital’s trademarks. Camera and cell phone cameras flash everywhere as the heavy metal tube, which weighs around a ton, is placed on eight small metal pins sticking out of the cement foundation. It’s no easy task to place the thirty-foot object in such a way that the holes in its base plate fit perfectly onto the pins. The distance to the already installed section of the work has to be checked constantly. Shortly after 6 p.m., the work is complete: the last of the four tubes is in place, and the sculpture is back in its original location diagonally opposite Europa Center. It was the second elaborate move of a work of art from the Deutsche Bank Collection this year. In September, Max Bill’s monumental sculpture Continuity(1986) was erected on the new green next to the Deutsche Bank Towers in Frankfurt.

Berlin is the main work of the sculptor pair Matschinsky-Denninghoff. The sculpture was made on the occasion of the city’s 750-year anniversary celebration and realized in the framework of the "Sculpture Boulevard." "We are trying to convey something of Berlin’s situation in a symbolical way," said the pair regarding their work. And indeed, the piece, reminiscent of two chain links bursting open, became a symbol for Berlin, which was still divided at the time—and a popular photographic motif for tourists from all over the world. Following the end of the "Sculpture Boulevard" project, the work was purchased for the the Deutsche Bank Collection and secured for the city in the long term. Due to renovation work on the subway tunnel below the site, Berlin had to be dissembled and put in storage this past June. But good use was put to the involuntary hiatus: the sculpture received a fresh polish and can now add a touch of new gloss to the Tauentzien.